


Come Morning Light

by Lesty



Series: Afterlife Shenanigans [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (I dunno if we still have to use that tag but just in case), Afterlife fic, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Conversations about Death, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Kinda, Pre-Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), this is supposed to be uplifiting and hopeful but I'm in a sad mood so idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 01:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21091097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesty/pseuds/Lesty
Summary: “The way I see it,” Captain Marvel told Peter. “Death is impermanent.”--After a long day of work, Carol has some things to say about death.It makes Tony pretty grateful





	Come Morning Light

**Author's Note:**

> It's not really set in the after life, and I feel like a fic like this is a bit late for fandom, but I've had a tough thing go down recently and I kinda needed to process soooo, this emerged. 
> 
> The title comes from the Taylor Swift song "[Safe & Sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzhAS_GnJIc)" (which features The Civil Wars)

“How does it work?” Tony asked.

Natasha frowned at the manual, flicking through the pages. “Apparently, we should be able to watch our loved ones on Earth. If I can work out how the hell we’re supposed to use this thing.”  
  
Tony stuck his hand out. “Here, Nat, let me have a look. Certified genius and all,” he added with a rueful grin.

Natasha snorted, and handed the manual to him. “Of course.”

  
~*~

“The way I see it,” Captain Marvel told Peter. “Death is impermanent.”  
  
Peter frowned. “I – I’m sorry Captain Marvel, but that just, that's not true. No one’s Jesus – or, well, maybe Captain America, but that’s different, he – oh do you know? He was flying a plane and then he froze and-”

Captain Marvel chuckled. “I know Steve’s history, Peter. Even if I didn’t know the man for five years, I _did_ grow up with the same stories as you.”

“Huh, right.”  
  
“Also,” she bumped her shoulder against his. “Call me Carol.”  
  
“Oh, um – right, okay. Thanks Cap- Carol.” He said, stumbling over her name.

The sun was setting over the horizon, painting different colours of reds, oranges, purples, and pinks over the sky. The steel beam they sat on easily supported their weight, and Peter watched as the various construction workers that had been there throughout the day were finishing packing their things. Peter didn’t want to leave, not just yet, and it seemed that Capti- _Carol_, didn’t want to either.

They were rebuilding Avengers Compound, using new designs they had found in Mr. Starks files after he had died. Even after everything, he had still been planning – it was incredible. On most days, there was always at least a few Avengers here too, doing what they could to help rebuild. Peter had even seen Captain America – well, Steve – Peter supposed Steve wasn’t much a Captain of anything anymore, cooking food and providing assistance for the construction workers.

They often sat somewhere when the day was done, watching the sun go down – whoever was there that day, that is. Today it was only the two of them, Peter wasn’t sure where everyone else was (whoever that consisted of now), and he never asked.

“But I wasn’t talking about resurrection, or… the premature announcement of death,” Carol said. “When I said death is impermanent.”

“Right,” He waved a hand in the air. “Part of the journey is the end,” he added bitterly. Peter thought he was allowed to be bitter today, just this once.

Carol sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”  
  
Peter sighed too, his gaze falling to his lap. Carol was pretty much the only person who had really spoken to him about this. Ever since Mr. Stark had… well, it was almost as if it existed in his periphery. Half the people he surrounded himself by just pretended nothing was wrong, and the other half was working so hard to move on, it was like nothing bad had happened.

But something bad _did_ happen, and sometimes Peter didn’t want to ignore it.

“You’re a scientist, right?” Carol continued. “So you must know about how energy works.”

“Oh well, I’d like to be a scientist – or maybe a photographer, but I sure do like science, it’s really-”

Carol raised an eyebrow at him, Peter couldn't see it, but he could _hear_ it in the tone of her voice. “Kid.”  
  
Peter sighed. “Sure,” He rattled off the various laws of thermodynamics. “It can’t be created or destroyed, the entropy of the universe can only ever increase – well, it can decrease too if it’s raising the entropy of another system, but that’s not important, and as the temperature reaches absolute zero, entropy reaches a constant value.”

“Right, and you know Newtons Laws of Motion?”  
  
“Everything is either still or moves in a straight line unless some outside force interferes with it, that outside force can change the velocity of the object, and for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction,” Peter parroted. He paused, looking back up at her. “No offence Carol, but, what is this about?”

Carol huffed out a quiet laugh. “Okay kid, look at this.” In an instant her fist was enveloped in the bright glow of whatever the hell her powers were. Peter had asked her once and had kind of lost what she was talking about after ten minutes into her story. What he really wanted to do, was to check out some of that Kree tech for himself, and maybe some of the old tesseract readings that existed from 2012, too.

“Human are nothing but mass, so therefore, we’re nothing but energy and movement,” she said, and the glow travelled up her forearm and back down. 

“We only do things because we feel compelled to,” she said, and she moved the glow from her left arm to her right. It reminded Peter of fire bending or something, from Avatar the Last Airbender. “You jumped into space, you should’ve fallen back down, but, because of another force, you stayed.” She snuffed the ball of energy out.

“What does-“  
  
“It’s a metaphor, kind of, so I can make my point,” Carol continued. “The most essential thing about energy is that first point, it can’t be created or destroyed, it’s in constant movement. It can change form, it can change the kind of energy it is, but it can’t change the fact that it is energy. You turn on a light, and from what you observe, it looks like you’ve created energy, but what you’ve actually done is convert electrical energy to visible energy – light. It’s basic stuff.”

Peter hummed.

“So you have the human person, one who is influenced by life and energy and is in constant movement to adapt to their existence,” she said, and created a new ball of energy in her palm. Peter watched the light wrap around her open fists, and up her forearms.

“And as they live,” Carol continued. “They transfer that energy onwards. They turn on lights, go for walks, talk to people, a person’s very existence feeds energy to others,” the ball grew as she spoke, it looked a bit like an octopus, with many tendrils reaching out. “And in turn, feeds off of the energy of others.

“So death, that’s the ultimate moment where your energy transfers. You can’t destroy it Peter, so when someone dies, their energy, everything that makes them, them, it goes out into the world, back to influence everything they touched,” She shot the ball into the upwards, and Peter watched in awe as the light from her energy blast scattered through the twilight sky.

“So, death is impermanent. We never lose the energy someone had, we never loose who they are. They exist everywhere, Tony, Natasha, they’re still alive, the energy we just recognised them in, however, has changed. They’re not just with us in spirit or whatever anyone has told you, but _everywhere_.”

She gestured to the sky. “They’re in the stars, the ground, the trees. They’re in the paint that’s been used on the building’s everywhere to create their makeshift monuments, they’re in the things we learn, the things we have learned. They exist in the way their lives influence our actions, Tony exists in the eyes of Morgan, he exists in your intelligence, he exists in the love he and Pepper had for each other, in the love he had for all of us.”

She nudged Peter’s shoulder lightly. “That kind of stuff doesn’t go away, because it’s energy,” Carol shot another ball at the steel beam underneath them. “It’s all just energy.”

Peter gave Carol a soft smile. He didn’t know how scientifically accurate Carol actually was, but her words warmed him. It made things a bit easier, and Peter thought Mr. Stark would rather like the idea of it.

~*~

The TV flicked softly as Tony and Natasha stayed curled on the sofa. Tony sniffed, his eyes stinging as he wiped his watery eyes on his arm.

“That…” Natasha said softly, not wanting to disturb whatever sort of peace they had gotten to. “That was sweet.”  
  
“It was,” Tony said. “Thank you.”  
  
Natasha looked at him and squeezed his hand. “Shall we get gelato?”  
  
“Yeah, let’s.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on [tumblr](https://lesty-xx.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi =)


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